UAE Minister of AI and Digital Economy looks at converging Metaverse, Blockchain, and AI

UAE Minister of AI and Digital Economy looks at converging Metaverse, Blockchain, and AI

During the World Economic Forum in Davos, CoinDesk carried out an interview with UAE Minister Omar Sultan AlOlama, Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence, Digital Economy and Remote Work.

Some big takeaways from his interview that I found interesting were the following. First he noted that he was pleased to see more and more governments embracing crypto and finding use cases for it. He also noted that Blockchain had become more popular and as he stated, “This is good for everyone because you can build a more trust based society that will take us into Web3.0”

He also made a comment that while most governments just talk about AI (Artificial Intelligence), the UAE is actually walking the talk. He states, “The UAE is taking a proactive role to regulate and deploy AI in environments and is working to attract AI startups.” He believes given the diversity in UAE demographics AI systems developed in UAE will be less biased towards specific ethnicities, genders, etc.. He also states that the UAE with its cutting edge infrastructure and its diverse economic sectors has a volume of data that could create a globally first AI Company from UAE.

According to Olama, the digital economics will be enabled by AI and Blockchain.

When asked if UAE was seeking to become a crypto hub, he stated that it was already a crypto hub in the region and one of the few leading crypto hubs globally. He noted, “ We need to do what people want and for some reasons people have chosen to embark on a crypto journey, some have invested their life savings in crypto. Today crypto is high risk but eventually it will mature, so as governments we either take a back seat or we become leaders. We need to ensure there is no money laundering, no pump and dump trading schemes. Yet given that this market is nascent there will be mistakes and we need to inform public as much as possible to the risks, ensure no illegal activity is happening.”

Olama believes that the biggest aim is to attract crypto talent which is among the best globally because they are building and securing Web3, building metaverse, payment gateways, and other solutions. UAE wants to enable them and create the right environment for them. He notes how both Polygon Blockchain and Binance crypto exchange have relocated to UAE.

He believes that the regulatory environment in UAE, is one where the regulator views companies and entities as innocent until proven guilty, ensuring the right checks and balances while being agile and nimble.

In his final remark, he notes that at Davos, ” I am  interested in seeing how the metaverse converges with Blockchain and AI and how this will look and use that to launch the right strategies and programs back in the UAE.”

Blockchain Expert Don Tapscott speaking at Blockchain Revolution Summit in Qatar

Blockchain Expert Don Tapscott speaking at Blockchain Revolution Summit in Qatar

Qatar will witness a blockchain revolution summit on the 26th of May 2022 at St. Regis Doha Qatar, with the participation of Dr. Don Tapscott, Executive Chairman of the Blockchain Research Institute, and well known as a leading Blockchain expert.

The summit is being organized by the Blockchain Research Institute Middle East, the first regional branch of Blockchain Research Institute based out of Qatar. The event is set to discuss opportunities to create industry solution frameworks and guidelines leveraging blockchain technologies to secure data, reduce costs and improve timelines.

The interesting highlights of this summit are the speakers and sponsors. Aside from Don Tapscott, speakers include Fadi Nasser, Chief Commercial Officer of Meeza Qatar. Meeza is also sponsoring the event. Nebil Ben Aissa, Chief Executive officer for Nexxo, a private equity investment network dedicated to FinTech is also participating.

In addition Khalid Al Ansari a Doctor of Law (JD) and a Ph.D. candidate in Islamic Finance and Economy at Hamad Bin Khalifa University in Doha, Qatar currently working on finalizing his Ph.D. dissertation in digital economy and blockchain, is also participating as a speaker.  

While both, Shahid A Syed, Head of Transaction Banking & Innovation Dukhan Bank and Mr. Gudni Stiholt Adalsteinsson Acting CEO Doha Bank & Chief Treasury & Investment Officer are also participating as speakers with Doha Bank sponsoring as well.

Dr. Ammar Darwish Al-Obaidani President of the Oman Blockchain Club (2017-2019) is also participating. Since 2019, he has been leading a government company that develops customized integrated digital solutions as a CEO (Frontier Technology LLC).

The significance lies in the level of participants which including the banking and academic sector as well as investors.

This summit comes at a significant time in Qatar. In April for example Qatar Airways announced  it has stepped into the metaverse with the launch of Qverse a Virtual reality experience for visitors on its website with MetaHuman cabin crew, called Sama giving virtual tours. Sama’s name originates from Arabic and translates to ‘sky’. She is a high fidelity digital human brought to life using Epic Games’ Unreal Engine, real-time 3D creation tool that’s used by leading game makers. Neutral Digital developed the VR experience for Qatar airways.

In addition Ooreedo Qatar, mobile telecom group, will be holding its EA Sports FIFA22 Champions Cup being entirely broadcasted in the metaverse and will offer exclusive NFT tokens. The tournament is taking place on May May 24, 25, and 28 at Aspire Ladies Sports Hall in Doha in front of e-Sports enthusiasts who will get the chance to see prominent gamers compete for the title.

Major FIFA and Qatari influencers will also attend the tournament, in addition to a plethora of entertainment and activities to ensure an unforgettable night. Ooredoo Nation – Gamers’ Land, the company’s own eSports brand, will also offer a selection of exclusive non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

“We are proud and excited to be venturing into the world of Web 3.0 technologies with this latest eSports development, which aligns perfectly with our strategic commitment to investment in innovation,” said Nasser bin Hamad bin Nasser Al Thani, Chief Commercial Officer at Ooredoo.

“We see eSports as one of the key areas of focus in this digital era, and an area in which we can explore the many opportunities to offer our customers an unrivalled experience.”

This comes after FIFA2022 announced that crypto.com will be sponsoring and AlGorand Blockchain will be a partner. It also comes after CoinMENA, crypto exchange announced it is serving clients in Qatar which prompted a reply from Qatar Central Bank noting that it has not licensed any crypto exchanges in Qatar and will take legal actions against any crypto exchange which claims to be operating with a license in Qatar. When questioned by LaraontheBlock Dina Semaan noted, “ People took this out of context, we never said we were licensed or regulated in Qatar, we said we now offer our services to Qatar, which could be from any location in the world and in this case from our licensed entity in Bahrain.” She added, “We can support all GCC countries and other MENA countries upon approval from Central Bank of Bahrain.”

WadZPay Blockchain payments provider to list on UAE Crypto Exchange soon

WadZPay Blockchain payments provider to list on UAE Crypto Exchange soon

WadzPay will list its token on a Middle East crypto asset Exchange soon, according to its Group CEO. In a tweet WadzPay CEO Anish Jain states “We will also expand presence to regional exchanges in UAE, India, Africa and South America.”

The WadzPay ecosystem provides infrastructure for emerging CBDC and Stable coin technologies allowing governments and institutions to sandbox or commercialize programs both at a domestic or international level.

WadzPay is building an interoperable and agnostic blockchain-based payments ecosystem. The company was founded in 2018 in Singapore and is currently operating in South East Asia, South Asia, Middle East and Africa. As per their website the company saw the potential for CBDC and Digital Assets leading the next revolution in the payments industry: by enabling faster payments, improvements in security, cost efficiency with optionality.

They claim to be working with large international payment companies, banks and other large global companies to enable digital asset-based transaction processing and settlement. WadzPay is currently present in Dubai UAE.

WadzPay recently took part in Commercial Bank of Dubai’s Innovation Challenge at DIFC FinTech Hive. Where they presented their digital wallet solution and were shortlisted in the Top 10 Companies, from a field of 100. In the final round WadzPay together with Commercial Bank of Dubai’s team will Pitch their solution to  their Executive Council.

UAE Based Cheeze Blockchain NFT photography app gets NetFlix Co-Founder on Board

UAE Based Cheeze Blockchain NFT photography app gets NetFlix Co-Founder on Board

Cheeze, rooted in the UAE, welcomes Ex Netflix Co-Founder Marc Randolph to its board of Directors. This comes after the completion of Cheeze’s second seed round where Randolph continued his investment.

As quoted on Forbes Randolph stated, “I am very excited about joining the Cheeze, Inc. board. The team Simon (Hudson, Cheeze CEO and Founder) is building is really impressive, and I am excited to see the progress they make,” Randolph said.

In March 2021, Cheeze Blockchain NFT photo application teamed up with UAE Based SRG Holding to develop minting studio for NFTs. Cheeze partnered with UAE based property developer to offer its engineering team a new base to develop and launch a new minting studio for NFTs (non-fungible tokens). Cheeze has partnered with Mohamed AlRafi, Founder of SRG Holding in the UAE, to start work on creating an engineering headquarters in Dubai and will continue to hire engineers over the coming months.

Cheeze was established in Silicon Valley in 2018. “Dubai is the perfect base to for a tech firm’s engineering team, with its record-breaking internet speed, advanced knowledge of Blockchain technology and contemporary working environments. AlRafi, who owns and operates a number of hugely successful businesses both globally and in Dubai, is now expanding his portfolio into the tech space by partnering with Hudson and investing in his company Cheeze,” a statement said. 

The Cheeze app will allow people to mint their photos into what are called NFTs, giving users the ability to trade and sell them on the blockchain. With a wide target demographic of photographers, collectors and consumers, the concept has been bolstered by the recent boom in the NFT space with sellers such as Beeple and 3Lau making millions of dollars.

The platform brings photography to the blockchain through the launch of NFT photo galleries. It enables anyone to purchase a photo gallery on its platform and lease out the space to photographers who want to showcase their collections. Cheeze is built on Flow Blockchain, where there are no gas fee charges for minting NFTs.

“Simon and his team have also shown that they are focused on providing true utility to people looking to bring their work to Web 3.0, and in an NFT environment where style seems to trump substance, this is a recipe for long term success, I’m very excited to be a part of this adventure and have a front-row seat as Cheeze figures out what this new world of Web 3.0 can provide.” added Randolph

BSV Blockchain to return Blockchain to Satoshi’s vision across MENA and the globe

BSV Blockchain to return Blockchain to Satoshi’s vision across MENA and the globe

BSV Global Blockchain Convention which commenced today in Dubai UAE is aiming to bring Blockchain back to Satoshi’s true vision and make it useful efficient and good.

Jimmy Nguyen, Founding President of BSV Blockchain, told attendees in his opening speech, “In the world today we are seeing too many coins, more than 10,000 cryptocurrencies listed on CoinMarket. We are seeing algorithmic stablecoins crash like in the case of Luna from Terra, with many of these coins being connected to crime. This is not the world I entered into when I started in Blockchain. Today we are here to start a conversation around building a world of Blockchain that is better. Build a world where Satoshi’s vision for BSV original protocol, one of P2P electronic payment transactions, and a data blockchain infrastructure useful for everyone. We are here to make the blockchain useful again.”

He goes on to state that the Satoshi vision was one of efficiency, honesty, a world of good. Bitcoin was created to address problems and issue a powerful data code and develop the internet protocol where it natively would send payments between devices without an intermediary.

Satoshi didn’t call this a blockchain, he called it a distributed time stamp server publishing transactions time stamped in a distributed manner.

Nguyen notes that BSV has demolished prior assumptions and hit 20 million transactions in April 2022, with blocks of 4GB of data. BSV is also the only blockchain that has the capacity to store NFTs on chain and yet he states this remains unmentioned unrecognized by others.

Nguyen believes that Blockchain and crypto should become more than speculative investing. He adds the world of scaling is currently not happening on Bitcoin because it is not being used for daily payments as this would create network congestion given that Bitcoin platform can only carry out 3-7 transactions per second, which is nowhere near the capacity of Visa or MasterCard that can carry out 50,000 transactions per second.

He explains, “At BSV Blockchain we have demonstrated 100,000 transactions per second, we have scaled and our network capacity is 4 GB per block which is 4000 times more than the capacity of the Bitcoin network. In April we demonstrated 2.4 million individual Bitcoin transactions in a single Block and this was Satoshi’s original design for Bitcoin. This is why Satoshi develop OP_PUSHDATA4, allowing users to send gigabytes of data in a transaction working to push to 4.3 GB of data in a single Bitcoin transaction.”

Scaling the blockchain is necessary to make it useful and inexpensive. The BTC network according to Nguyen is congested and transaction costs are high and unreliable, anywhere between 70 cents to 30 USD. Ethereum is not that better with average costs ranging from 3 USD to 70 USD and currently standing at 24 USD. This means minting an NFT on Ethereum costs 80 USD. On BSV it costs 1/100th to 1/20th of a cent, almost free. The goal is to get that number down to 1/1,000th of a cent  This is the way Satoshi had designed it adds Nguyen.

He explains, “Satoshi wanted people to be able to send small casual transactions over the internet, and that is why we are working with IPV6 internet protocol. The combination will create something formidable.”

In the MENA region BSV has already started its journey. Muhammad Salman Anjum Head of BSV Hub for MENA & South Asia stated, “We have launched our BSV MENA hub out of Dubai UAE and are developing partnerships with academia, governmental entities, the private sector, developers as well as regulators to push forward the adoption of Blockchain and BSV.”

BSV is working with several entities in the UAE including the Ministry of Energy, University of Sharjah, and UAE Department of Community, Dubai Police and others to build the research and development as well as knowledge base.

BSV MENA will also be promoting the launch of Women ambassadors in the upcoming months to encourage more women to enter the blockchain ecosystem.

While Ahmed Yousif, Lead of Government Initiative Middle East BSV Blockchain discussed the work BSV is doing with governments in MENA and how this relates to Smart Cities.

As he stated, “The MENA governments have a huge interest in use cases where blockchain can solve problems and the BSV task force is working with governments in KSA on Blockchain use cases for smart cities and Saudi green initiative. Bahrain government is also working on use cases in government on the infrastructure side.”

He gives an example of a use case in KSA where a Saudi diplomatic gated community, will be utilizing NFTs ( Non Fungible Tokens) in Riyadh KSA to encourage its residents to participate in green initiatives as part of the community.

He notes that the BSV journey in the region is just starting but BSV is here to disrupt the way we share data.

Qatar opens its doors to CoinMENA Crypto exchange as a regulated exchange

Qatar opens its doors to CoinMENA Crypto exchange as a regulated exchange

CoinMENA Chief Operating Officer Dina Semaan announced today on twitter that CoinMENA crypto exchange is now serving clients in Qatar. This would be the first crypto exchange to officially announce that it is serving clients in Qatar. As per her tweet, “Starting from today, CoinMENA services are now being offered in Qatar, making us the first regulated crypto exchange to be offering services in Qatar.” She adds with this expansion we now offer CoinMENA services in six Arab countries, and we continue to achieve our goals of offering the simplest and easiest method for trading crypto.” This comes after Qatar’s FIFA 2022 took on sponsors such as Crypto.com, one of the international crypto exchanges globally. It also comes after FIFA signed up AlGorand Blockchain as a sponsor and partner for their digitization plans in the sports and entertainment sector. CoinMENA was first regulated in Bahrain, and then sought regulation in UAE, and offers its services in KSA, Kuwait, Oman, and now Qatar as a regulated entity. In the press release CoinMENA confirms that it has become the first regional digital assets exchange to offer its services in Qatar, meaning that users across the Gulf state can now easily and safely invest in cryptocurrencies for the first time. Qatari citizens and residents can open accounts with CoinMENA and have access to all the features the platform has to offer, including connecting their bank accounts to their CoinMENA wallets, enabling them to deposit and withdraw funds directly and safely within minutes. Commenting in a joint statement, CoinMENA Co-Founders Dina Sam’an and Talal Tabbaa said: “We are delighted to become the first crypto exchange to offer our services in Qatar. Investors have been asking about our plans to enter the country for some time now, so this news represents a major milestone on our long-term geographic market expansion plans.” The Bahrain-headquartered firm recently became the first onshore licensed crypto exchange to introduce limit trading, enabling the CoinMENA users to set the price at which they wish to buy and sell crypto. Users in Qatar will also be able to utilize the recently added features including withdrawing USDT via the TRON network for lower fees, and earning bonus rewards when they invite their friends through CoinMENA’s referral program. “CoinMENA’s entry into Qatar is a huge step on our journey to becoming the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region’s preferred crypto financial services company,” said Sam’an. “Our team is constantly striving to onboard new countries and introduces new features to a wider audience.” “We are immensely proud of everything we have achieved during our first year of operations,” Tabbaa added. “However, we still have a lot to achieve, which is why we will continue to work tirelessly to deliver the best possible experience for our ever-expanding user base.”

Saudi Arabian’s traded 20 billion USD worth of virtual assets in 2021

Saudi Arabian’s traded 20 billion USD worth of virtual assets in 2021

800,000 Saudi’s used digital currencies in 2021 with the value of virtual asset transactions in Saudi at around 20 billion USD and this is expected to grow five times over the next five years. The information was shared by Ali AlObaid, Managing Director of BitOasis crypto exchange, to Arab News

In the article he states, “We believe that this can grow by five times over the next five years. Last year, KSA probably represented 15 percent of Gulf Cooperation Council and Middle East and North Africa activity.”

He added that around 4 percent of adult population in MENA will have invested in crypto by the end of 2022. While in the USA 20 percent of adults have invested in crypto.

BitOasis user base in KSA is primarily millennials, 25-34 year old’s, with 30 percent of those trading on BitOasis between the ages of 35-44 years.

In a YouGov survey recently it noted that 1.8 percent of Saudi Arabian residents currently trade in cryptocurrencies. Yet it is Morocco that tops crypto ownership as per a TripleA report, followed by Egypt, UAE, and then KSA.

The report noted that in 2021 3.9 percent or 300 million people were crypto users globally with 18,000 businesses accepting crypto payments.

Investing in Properties in Lebanon now through Fractional NFTs

Investing in Properties in Lebanon now through Fractional NFTs

Three villas in Lebanon can now be bought using fractional NFTs ( Non Fungible Tokens). Utilizing Aqarchain which is the first crowdfunding fractional NFT investment platform for properties globally, investors of all income levels can own a piece of property in Lebanon and make a return on investment by receiving dividends from rent and sales.

Aqarchain.io has listed Villa Ekolu valued at 640,000 USD divided into 3,746 shares and so far 10.73 percent has been subscribed to it. Aqarchain is offering 7 percent guaranteed Return on Investment.

There are two other villas as well Villa Ekahi valued at 525,000 USD and Villa Hauoli valued at 415,000 USD.

This is the first time property in Lebanon has been tokenized as NFTs and listed.

Aqarchain,  a blockchain powered real estate asset tokenization platform, which aims to create a decentralized ecosystem where investment in real estate is as easy as investing in shares on the stock market, has now launched a NFT marketplace.

Aqarchain mints real estate NFT and fractionalizes it. The company has developed the world’s First Decentralized Real Estate NFT marketplace with a MetaVerse.

Why a Crypto ad on Saudi’s MBC is Big News!

Why a Crypto ad on Saudi’s MBC is Big News!

So even with the tumultuous times that the crypto market is seeing this past week, and despite the fear and apprehension on the state of crypto, stablecoins, and NFTs given the regulation discussions happening across the globe, one thing has kept my spirits high and optimistic. It is no other than the crypto TVC ad for BitOasis on MBC.

This is big news! Big News because it gives me a premonition that crypto will soon become a regulated mainstream item in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Most will ask, why link the BitOasis Crypto TVC with possible regulations in Saudi Arabia. The answer to me is simple. MBC Group is a media conglomerate owned by the Saudi government based out of MENA with headquarters in Dubai UAE.

So either MBC needs the money so badly it doesn’t care what ads air on their station, or MBC is warming up to crypto which could mean that the government of Saudi Arabia is warming up to crypto as well.

It is not so surprising; In Ramadan Saudi MBC Group launched their NFTS, Fananees, the most popular characters in digital intellectual property, the renowned seven cartoon characters with more than 200 different attributes. A total of 9,999 unique NFTs were revealed.

So when BitOasis TVC on MBC Group came out, it felt more like a continuation of MBC Group’s openness towards crypto and NFT scene. Ola Doudin, Founder and CEO of BitOasis said on LinkedIn, “We’re very proud to have launched the region’s first cryptocurrency television commercial in partnership with MBC GROUP, the largest media company in the Middle East and North Africa.”

Notice the word in partnership!

Doudin has on many occasions espoused the ambitions of BitOasis to expand across the MENA region, and their discussions with many regulators including Saudi Arabian.

So while yes, crypto is facing a bearish market, it doesn’t mean it is going away, on the contrary it is here to stay.

Finally one can’t pass over another big piece of news that has come out of the region this week. Dubai government is preparing a metaverse strategy that will be out in the next two months. Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the UAE Vice President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, has directed the formation of a higher committee to prepare the Dubai Metaverse Strategy. The higher committee will be headed by the Crown Prince of Dubai Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum and will supervise all future technological developments in the emirate.

 It reminds me of the Blockchain strategy that was announced in 2017, and look where the UAE is today, a strong crypto hub.

In the end you can’t have a metaverse without a digital currency of some sort and you can’t have a metaverse without a crypto economy.

So whenever you start losing hope or start getting the jitters, read these words above and remember that after the dot com bubble, there was a revival, and after the ICO bubble there was a revival, and today after the bearish times… good ones are just around the corner.

The Tug of War between the Wall Street of Crypto and the responsible Global crypto Hub

The Tug of War between the Wall Street of Crypto and the responsible Global crypto Hub

So Now the UAE is being dubbed the Wall Street of Crypto. The terminology was first coined by no other than CZ (Zhao Changpeng) the Founder of Binance, whom a BloomBerg article noted as saying that the UAE is definitely the headquarters of Binance. This is the first time in the history of Binance where it actually announces it even has a headquarter.

It would seem that the Wall Street of Crypto has ousted both France and Bahrain as the base for Binance, as well as Singapore which Binance retreated from several months ago.

In the meantime Binance is actually bringing on Wall Street veterans such as Vishal Sacheendran, the former New York Mellon Bank executive who now holds the position of UAE based director for the Middle East and North Africa.  Richard Teng the head of Middle East and North Africa at Binance says more appointments from the banking sector will follow.

So far the UAE has granted licenses to a handful of international and global crypto exchanges including the latest Kraken, in addition to Binance, crypto.com and others.

Despite this, Singapore is fighting back. Mr Ravi Menon, Managing Director, Monetary Authority of Singapore, explained during the Financial Times’ Crypto & Digital Assets Summit on 27 April 2022 how much effort Singapore has put into blockchain, digital assets and digital payments.

As Menon in his speech stated, “In the last two years, we have granted licenses or in-principle approvals to 11 digital payment tokens service providers. They include global stablecoin players like Paxos, crypto exchanges like Coinhako as well as established financial institutions like DBS Vickers.  We have also issued in-principle approvals to Revolut and Luno.”

He adds, “The licensing process is stringent because we want to be a responsible global crypto hub, with innovative players but also with strong risk management capabilities. We only approve applicants with strong governance structures, fit and proper board and management, and we go through their track record.”

This ofcourse comes after the UAE announced its virtual asset regulatory Authority and its open stance towards crypto.

The interesting take away from all of this is who will eventually win the tug of war to be the hub for blockchain, crypto, and digital asset innovation, will it be The Wall Street of Crypto or the responsible global crypto hub, or maybe another country all together.